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Rammasun toll in China climbs to 33

Beijing, July 21 IANS | 8 months ago

The number of people killed by typhoon Rammasun in China has increased to 33, officials said Monday.

Rammasun, the strongest typhoon to hit China in four decades, brought downpours and floods affecting more than 8 million people in the southern coastal provinces of Hainan, Guangdong, Yunnan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xinhua reported quoting a ministry of civil affairs statement.

According to the latest government figures, 13 deaths have been reported in south China's Hainan, nine in Guangxi and 11 in neighbouring Yunnan.

A total of 608,000 people have been re-settled and over 240,000 are in urgent need of basic necessities.

The typhoon has damaged power and water supplies, telecommunications networks, ports and roads, and made rescue work more difficult.

Hainan, where Rammasun made its first landfall Friday afternoon, suffered the worst damage.

The typhoon destroyed about 51,000 houses and 40,600 hectares of crops, causing economic losses of over 10.8 billion yuan (USD 1.74 billion) in the province.

A second batch of disaster relief supplies from the Red Cross Society of China arrived in the provincial capital of Haikou Monday.

Four hundred family emergency kits will be distributed to disaster-hit areas Tuesday.

Huang Jie, an official with the Red Cross Society of Hainan, said the organisation plans to send 2,500 family emergency kits and 5,000 jackets to the province.

The Red Cross Society of Hainan has also been delivering tents and rice to affected areas.

Guangxi, which is still under the spell of the typhoon, has reported a direct economic loss of 1.63 billion yuan.

Despite no deaths so far, Guangdong Province has suffered worst economically, with losses amounting to more than 12.7 billion yuan.

Rammasun, which first made landfall in the eastern province of Albay in the Philippines Tuesday last week, has claimed at least 94 lives with six people still missing in that country.